Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an installation for processing articles by radiation and more particularly by electron bombardment.
Brief Discussion of the Related Art
It is known to sterilize containers by subjecting them to electron bombardment. Such electron bombardment is performed in a shielded enclosure seeking to confine X-rays in a zone from which operators are excluded.
To this end, an installation for treating containers by electron bombardment comprises a structure having a container transport device mounted thereon with a portion of the device housed in a shielded enclosure in the vicinity of one or more radiation emitters. The enclosure has an inlet and an outlet forming a passage for the transport device.
In order to attenuate the energy of X-rays emitted by the emitter and prevent them from escaping from the shielded enclosure, it is known to arrange shielded internal partitions in the enclosure that are arranged as a horizontal baffle between the inlet and the outlet of the shielded enclosure. The term “baffle” is used to mean that the internal partitions are arranged so as to prevent X-rays having a direct path from the emitter to the inlet or to the outlet. Thus, the X-rays produced in the environment of the emitter are reflected against the walls of the shielded enclosure and of the shielded internal partitions a number of times that is sufficient to cause them to lose substantially all of their energy before they reach the inlet or the outlet of the shielded enclosure.
Installing internal partitions makes it necessary to use intermediate container-transfer devices to enable the containers to travel past the baffles.
Although operators are very well protected by such installations, the presence of the baffles is very constraining. The installation presents the drawback of occupying a large floor area or “footprint” in particular because of the presence of the intermediate transfer devices that are of dimensions that have a direct influence on the footprint of the installation.